Liatris is one of many showy American natives that British gardeners have taken to their hearts. Fluffy, rose-pink flowers open from button-like buds that circle a slender tower of narrow, lance-shaped leaves.
Where groups of liatris corms are planted naturalistically, the flower plumes are dramatic, reaching up and out like grounded fireworks.
Liatris is often suggested as a way to add vertical lines to a flower border, but you can expect to see some wavy, almost horizontal lines too. The person who planted the corms would have needed a vivid imagination to foresee these trajectories.
I’m not sure of the botanical names of the plants shown here – most likely Liatris spicata or Liatris pycnostachya, named cultivars, or a mix.
As always, the folk names are more evocative: blazing star, button snakeroot, gayfeather, cat-tail liatris and hairy button.
The towering flower spikes are unusual in that they bust into bloom from the top down, unlike most other spiky plants such as foxgloves or delphiniums.
Sunshine sets the flowers glowing so they seem to be lit up from inside. Liatris offers a controlled waywardness, a way to inject a little fun into a sunny border or a prairie style planting.
My pictures were taken in the RHS Bridgewater’s beautiful walled garden, summer 2021, and shared for Becky’s Past Squares (Lines, In the Pink, Flowers, Spiky – take your pick!)
Susan Rushton 
I thought this post so well timed as, like you, I immediately thought of sparklers.
I’d have held it back a few more days had I made the connection.
One of my favorites! Alas, they won’t grow in my yard on the edge of the woods. Not enough sun, I think. I’ve tried various locations. No go. Sigh.
I’m sighing along with you.
Amazing pictures! I’ll explore more of posts.
Thanks, Robert.
Looks lovely.
It’s easy to see how they got their name.
A few years ago I saw a nice colony growing wild along the highway but they haven’t came back. This summer I found a single Liatris pycnostachya (Prairie Blazing Star) on a back road south of town. I tried growing L. spicata in a flower bed but it didn’t return the next spring. They are indeed quite a sight in mass plantings.
It seems funny that they all disappeared. I wonder if they were taken by someone else who saw them?
Well, you never know.
We have several native species here, and they can be confusing. Some are more easily identified because they’re much shorter, but I’ve seen a few in east Texas that were easily more than six feet tall. There’s a pretty one I’ll be showing called L. elegans that tends toward pinkish white, and sometimes appears as a very pale greenish-whitish-yellow.
I looked L. elegans up online following your comment but the pictures were so variable I could not get a clear view of what the plant was like.
I just looked at some of my photos, and they’re variable, too! I’ll find some representative ones and post them.
You can perhaps set the record straight!
That’s quite a set of Liatris displays. I’m with you in assuming at least some of those specimens are cultivars.
They seem to have hybrid vigour.
Might that be said of the gardener, too?